Viewed
at just the right angle, and maybe with a bit of squinting — and
perhaps a little imagination — the natural stone formation resembled a
charging elephant, about 100 feet high and up to eight feet wide.

Elephant
Rock near Hopewell Cape, New Brunswick, was so well known and
frequently photographed that it appeared on the provincial health care
identification card.

But
like the Rockies and Gibraltar — as the Gershwins somewhat
simplistically put it — it’s only made of clay, and on Monday about half
of it collapsed.

Interactive tides animation (click or tap on a photo below, then drag up & down)Remember, the real Bay of Fundy tides take about 6 hours to flow from low tide to high tide, so plan to stay long enough to witness this amazing phenomenon.

But Mr. Hamann said that major springtime collapses were the result of the same freeze-thaw cycle that creates potholes.

And, he added, all of the formations are ultimately doomed.

“People get attached, and they don’t like change,” Mr. Hamann said. “But the tide waits for no man or rock.”